Big Beat Steve

I may be mistaken in interpeting this but my LP copy (Japanese Verve MV 2614) does have a slight distortion at the very begining of this track (during the first 2 or 3 notes played by the sax). Even after repeated listening, I am not quite sure whether this is a tape or pressing distortion or a fluff of Stan Getz' reed (or both), though.

Feb. 4, 1936 Originally on U.S. Decca 7171

I have the 1944-49 JATP 10-CD set from Universal Italy. Nothing to complain about the sound, but the booklet is just a 12-page affair giving the session details, and that's all. Got it through Amazon Germany a couple of years ago for a very low price which was so low that I did not mind ending up with a share of duplicates with what I haved on those Verve vinyl twofers from the 70s/early 80s. At that price the remaining (new to me) tracks still were a good buy at any rate.

In hindsight, I bought far too few from that "Classics" series but it seems I acted smart in buying THAT one back then ... (though I already had the 60s LP from the "Vintage" series and later obtained Vol. 2 on Harlan Lonard from the French Black & White RCA lp series).

HEMP? Reminds one of that Cheech & Chong car with its body made entirely of "grass" ("weed") that they tried to sneak across the border ...

Which will probably keep PJC in business for years (possibly decades) to come, regardless of wether their rent is going to skyrocket or whatever else may happen in that corner of Paris (real estate-wise or otherwise).

A subject well-covered by now (recommended reading: "Different Drummers" by Michael H. Kater), and that picture has indeed been printed often. Though that uniform is not that surprising and may actually have been a sly move to get any bloodhounds off the trails of certain jazz activities in France. He may have lent a degree of occupants' "officialdom" to those in his immediate vicinity where they were likely to be seen by other 3rd Reich officers who may have been far less sympathetic towards jazz. And there were other occupant solidiers who sympathized with jazz and who more or less openly went to the jazz events that took place in occupied France. Recent French books on jazz in occupied France mention this in several places. Sometimes this seems to have led to strange scenarios. There is the story of a letter that Charles Delaunay received (during WWII) from a German soldier who asked him where to obtain another copy of his "Hot Discography" - because this soldier had been forced to abandon his copy when his tank burnt at the Russian front and he barely made it out of the tank but could not salvage his discography that he had carried along ... At any rate, whatever this Kubrick article linked in the opening post says about that abandoned project, maybe it is for the better that the story behind Dr. Schulz-Köhn (who was very active in jazz all his life and whose jazz activities in the 3rd Reich and in WWII weren't all reported correctly by Zwerin - so Dr. Schulz-Köhn himself had asserted later on) was not mutilated by Hollywood. Would we have needed another "Clint Eastwood let loose on Bird" or another over-the-top "Swing Kids" à la Hollywood or worse examples of what could have been done? This man's biography and life was a complex and multi-faceted one. And if Kubrick would have been genuinely interested in the first place, no doubt he could have talked to Dr. Schulz-Köhn without any problem in 1985 - "Dr Jazz" was still alive and active then (incidentally I remember listening to his jazz radio shows ever so often in the 80s - authoritative and highly informative for the collectors ...).

Another link severed to that past era of jazz. RIP. Gonna spin the Amram-Barrow LP later tonight.

Bill Birch's address and phone number are given at the end of this review of his book: http://www.pennilesspress.co.uk/NRB/keeper_of_the_flame.htm @Hardbopjazz: I have the e-mail address of Julian Birch (I exchanged a couple of mails with him when I bought the book directly from him in 2011). PM me if interested.

BTW, since this has evolved into a thread discussing international shipping rates in general: Daniel, it seems like the USA aren't the only country that has inflated shipping rates in recent years. I have the impression that international shipping rates from Sweden have gone up considerably too. I've been buying through Tradera here and there since about 2005/2006 and have noticed in the past year or so that rates for sending parcels or larger letters have increased quite steeply. Or am I wrong and have only been lucky in the past in that I might have stayed below certain weight thresholds by coincidence? At any rate, close to 7 euros for sending one (thin) mag within seems to be pretty hefty to me and I cannot recall it has always been that way.

Just like the "new gadgets for new gadgets' sake" and "anything not brand new and the latest fad is just like yesterday's papers" industry. Though THAT industry may actually be a lot worse in its milking for profit - because there are FAR more of those who go down THAT route all the time. And they go on and on and on and never even pause to stop for a second, lest somebody might call their "emperors' clothes" bluff. Glad there are options indeed. BTW, I agree with your "hearing affected by nostalgia" point. That may be behind a lot of it. Though OTOH that "updated for today's listening habits" remastering trend is just the opposite coin of the same medal, i.e. hearing affected by an unwilingness to adjust to what music orignally sounded like and how it ought to be listened to in the context of the way it originally was recorded (not talking about pre-electrical oldtime recordings before c.1926, of course, but rather about a lot of 50s recordings).

IMO the point is this: In the CD era remasterings cover(ed) a far wider range of the good, the bad and the ugly, and unfortunately (at least to a LOT of ears it seems) the bad and the ugly aren't exactly scarce. Relatively speaking, there seem to be too many CD remastering characters out there who can't seem to resist the temptation of tampering with the overall sound, the brightness, harshness, basses, trebles, clicks or pops (on less than perfectly preserved vintage souce material) or whatever, and all this just in the name of adapting to "today's listening habits". Not all of these remasterings were objectively "bad" but I guess to many they were just found to be "ill-suited", and this "today's listening habits" stuff is no argument IMO. Whereas vinyl (in the case of music originally issued on vinyl) just sounded the way it always has ever since Day 1. And those who've grown accustomed to that do not always see the necessity of changing all that (I am not talking about vinyl reissues of pre-vinyl music vs CD reissues of the same - in the reissue field vinyl had its share of duds too, and needle drops on either vinyl or CD may be a different case again). I find it easy to understand there are many out there who are very picky about such things. Hence this ongoing feud, maybe? But though I am definitely a vinyl man, I have no trouble listening to most CDs either. As a huge part of my music on vinyl and CD dates back to the pre-vinyl era I can appreciate the pros and cons of both media for the time being. And those differences I have noticed on my "non-high end" equipment time and again (i.e. CDs sounding "brighter and clearer", vinyl sounding "warmer and fuller" if you know what I mean) often are a case of the listening mood you are in, at least to THIS listener ...

Being too lazy to think hard about any such shortcuts, even with the old system I used the following purely "mechanical" method to break up quotes when I wanted to reply directly but separately to several sentences in a lengthy quote: I open the same topic a second time in another window of my browser, access the "quote and reply" feature by clicking on "Quote", then I mark the quote in its entirety with my cursor (including one line above and one after the quote to make sure the entire quote is marked) and copy it to my original reply post with Ctrl-C and then Ctrl-V. You can even copy the quote directly in the post you have accessed via "Quote" to reply to a quote (so no need toopen the topic in a second window to access the quote). But IF you open the topic a second window this allows you to reply to quotes from several different previous posts in one go by copying the previous quotes into your reply post. This I can do as often as I like and then have the quote more than once in my post and can now delete unwanted sections from each of the copied quotes and reply to what's left of the quote directly underneath the respective quote. Like this: Here I could now comment on whether king ubu's method is indeed clever. And here I could state that I have no idea how to handle this either. Not the most elegant way but it works each time.

Interesting! Recommended reading to accompany this: http://www.allbookstores.com/Sins-City-Real-Los-Angeles/9780811823197 ;)

How about this: "Jockey Jack Boogie" by Johnny Wicks Swinging Ozarks feat. Preacher Stephens on tuba, reissued on Pearl LP 13 (Delmark) About as odd as they comme ... but fascinating ...

Ah, should have thought of that ... Thanx!

My point is that unless you are a subscriber (or take out a "free one-month suscription" or some such - which of course one is liable to forget to cancel in time and then gets signed up for good) you cannot read the story beyond the first few lines. See?

Don't tell me you are trying to lure people into taking out a subscription for the WSJ...

I depends on the direction you want to pursue to go from there in your quest for "raw vocals and slide guitar" ... (not "better" in the strictest sense of the world but "evolving" ...) I have a hunch you could do worse than to check out the recordings by HOUND DOG TAYLOR on the Alligator label.

As well ... Never mind the "offended" problem by using the word "plodding" IMHO. First of all, I cannot see much of an "offended" attitude in the replies of those who praise the book here. Anyway, you are entitled to your opinion. Opinions differ, so do assessments of works of "literature". Isn't this quite natural? And honestly (and totally P. in-C. ), in order to feel "offended" on a level such as this where the entire "crime" consists in using a qualifier such as "plodding", IMHO (again) it takes a real determination and zeal to allow oneself to be "offended" in order to be able to feel "offended" at all. In short, the use of the sentiment of being "offended" seems to be overinflated anyway these days (maybe to quiet dissenters, who knows? - "I feel offended by what you say, so thou shalt nevermore reiterate what thou just said and I shall therfore be free from any obligation of having to refute your statements by facts" - A bit of an easy way out in any "discussion", I feel ... ). So much for that, as for that "plodding" feel of being overwhelmed by the focus being extensively (maybe too extensively) on the minutest details of recordings that a given artist (and subject of said biography) left behind, I for one do understand your feelings and I tend to agre to a certain extent. Maybe because I am a non-musician (just an interested listener). You being a musician and therefore possibly be better equipped to make something of such analyses, I'd figure there is a point to your judgment. And aren't there many books like this? Case in point: "Infatuation - The Music and Life of Theodore Fats Navarro" by Petersen and Rehak. There the music really is dissected almost to the tiniest atom. And though I have almost all of the released key recordings examined it is extremely tough listening closely enough to make something of ALL the analyses. So I must admit so far I've skipped a good deal of those analyses - and yet I don't regret having bought it. I tend to regard it as a sort of "commented discography" to be pulled out when I feel like spinning Fats' Savoy or BN recordings, etc., at length.

In the mid-90s I bought this 1962 "fanzine" book in a Norfolk thrift shop: Fittingly (for THIS occasion), the back cover looks like this: The brief 1-page bios (with pic) on the some 100 pages inside cover an odd range of "name jazz artists, ranging the entire scope from Basie, Blakey, Mingus, Maynard Ferguson, Kenton, Manne, Monk as well as Shake Keane and Tony Kinsey etc. etc. via Bo Diddley, Cleo Laine and Ray Charles to Sid Phillips and Nat Gonella and then on to Beryl Bryden, Colyer, Terry Lightfoot, George Melly and then Clinton Ford (who??), Ed Corrie (??), "The Alberts", The Clyde Valley Stompers as well as Nero & The Gladiators and last but not least a very youngish Dudley Moore. So it wasn't all trad but the trad share was substantial. Wonder how many British jazz fans of 1962 would have appreciated ALL of them equally ...

Came on sort of late (2006?), discovered org more or less at the same time as AAJ but after a spell of hanging out on both I found this site here much more pleasant, lively and informative ... So I can only join in with the others ... Thanks for the forum and for all the stimulating and informative discussions on matters music! Hope things will continue that way ...

Suggested reading on this subject: "The Restless Generation - How rock music changed the face of 1950s Britain" by Pete Frame (Rogan House) The reasons behind the popularity of trad jazz as one important aspect of the YOUTH's pop music (as opposed to mainstream popular music churned out by the established powers in music business) of the day and its links with what became rock'n'roll and the British blues scene of the early 60s are described vividly and in detail here.

Yeah, "I'm Going Home" on "Recorded Live" is a killer track . Almost my #1 reason for going for that album, though the rest ain't bad at all either. But considering tha musical context of that period of the 70s, this tune showed that some still could do some straight ahead kick-ass stuff that really MOVES. RIP.

Great first-hand reminiscences, MG! And could it be that we are about the same age, freelancer? When I started listening consicously to radio (must have been in early 1974) I was 14 but somehow most of what was current and in the charts or what was "the thing to listen to" among my age peers never clicked with me. Time and again I've tried to remember how it came about that the then-current pop on the hit parades or even all that hard rock etc. never caught my ear but I really cannot recall. Pop fare on the charts must have sounded inspid to me (disco was total no-no anyway and total anathema to my developing tastes in music by black artists from Day One) whereas hard rock, prog rock (or whatever) appeared over the top and a bit like overamplified noise (with a few exceptions, see below). I guess music was to be no-frills and straight to the bone for me because what immediately held me spellbound, OTOH, was 50s rock'n'roll on the one hand (Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and above all Eddie Cochran were early r'n'r favorites) and jazz from "dixieland" (o.k., beyond the inevitable George Lewis' "Ice Cream" which was an early ear-catcher, a lot of it would qualify as "classic jazz") to swing (big bands and beyond) as well as whatever vintage blues sounds radio had to offer. Luckily radio had a few good shows where you'd learn about a lot of jazz and blues artists in a short time. Another early influence was a weekly history of country music on AFN that introduced me to a lot from Hank Williams to oldtime string bands. Soon after I started buying records in the spring of 1975 (my first two records ever bought were LPs by Duane Eddy and Johnny & The Hurricanes , certainly due to radio oldies show exposure), jazz and blues records followed, and reading on music matters must have helped a lot, particularly Joachim Ernst Berendt's Jazz Book. Within a year or so this cautiously led me to explore Diz and Bird of 1945, and upon listening through that entire Prestige twofer it sounded quite logical to me from the start (contrary to my initial fears). So things went on from there ... I must unconsciously have been pigeonholing certain things,though, because while I did pick up blues records by John Lee Hooker, Lightnin Hopkins or Elmore James or even Ma Rainey and Robert Johnson pretty early on (at 16 or 17), for some time I didn't quite know what to make of R&B and Jump Blues acts such as late 40s/50s Louis Jordan or Buddy Johnson. File them under swing or not? Took me a while to appreciate this sort of "crossover". I guess most of my age peers considered my music tastes quite oddball, and IIRC except for the perennial classics of 60s British bands (such as the Beatles and Stones) Ten Years After were almost the only common ground (somehow their blues rock and ability to rock & roll if called upon - the Recorded LIve album is one that's still a keeper - did manage to grab me). And when it came ot the Moody Blues, for example, I preferred to stick with their (just-reissued at the time) first Decca LP which appealed much more than their later psychedelic affairs. And I remember that while I never was that impressed with those hard rock guitarist heroes of the 70s, after listening to the likes of Elmore James on record or to Big Joe WIlliams on stage in 1977 I figured to myself that anything beyond the gutsy essentials of blues guitarists like them was likely to be just gimmicks .. Ah well, youthful folly and a lost cause for mainstream stuff from the start, I fear ...